03-04-a-Trending & MSM Top Wires

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who suspended his third-party presidential bid last week and endorsed former President Donald Trump, has lost his Secret Service protection following the decision to leave the race, his campaign said.

“Mr. Kennedy no longer has USSS,” Stefanie Spear, Kennedy’s press secretary, told CBS News.

In remarks in Phoenix on Friday, Kennedy said he was backing Trump because he could see no viable path to the White House. And although he said he wasn’t “terminating” his campaign — remaining on the ballot in some noncompetitive states — he pledged to remove his name from states where he could be a spoiler. Kennedy was on the ballot in more than 20 states when he suspended his White House bid.

President Biden directed the Secret Service to afford protection to Kennedy after the assassination attempt against Trump in July. Kennedy’s campaign had long requested the protection for the independent presidential candidate — an issue that was especially acute for Kennedy, whose father and uncle were assassinated in the 1960s.

At least five Secret Service agents have been placed on modified duty after the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump in July, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press.

They include the special agent in charge of the Pittsburgh field office and three other agents assigned to that office, which was responsible for the security planning ahead of the July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, according to the law enforcement official who had direct knowledge of the matter. One of the five agents was assigned to Trump’s protective detail, the official said.

The official was not authorized to publicly disclose details of the personnel investigation and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

The agents are on administrative leave, meaning they cannot do investigative or protective work.

Fox News reported that a different group of Secret Service agents assigned specifically to Trump’s security detail remains operational. Trump avoided serious injury from the shooting.

A Secret Service department that handles manpower requests urged agents not to ask for additional security for the rally where an assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump occurred, according to a whistleblower report.

Americans deserve a thorough federal investigation into the Secret Service security failures that led up to the shooting of former President Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania last month, retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Blaine Holt told Newsmax, Friday.

In an appearance on “The Chris Salcedo Show,” Holt and retired Army Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer discussed whether the problems were the result of incompetence related to diversity, equity, and inclusion policies or something more sinister.

Shaffer said Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., attended a Trump rally in Virginia a few weeks before the July 13 assassination attempt, and at that event, “they had layers of overlapping and continuous security-controlled corridors for people to move, and nobody was allowed to wander around. So then, yeah, how is it that even with DEI in mind, they go from an efficient, well-organized, well-wired machine to like, Oh, did we forget to check that building? So, no, this goes beyond DEI.”

Judicial Watch announced today it received 311 pages of U.S. Secret Service (USSS) records that show the Secret Service has made it a top priority that “diversity and inclusion is not just ‘talked about’ – but demonstrated by all employees through ‘Every Action, Every Day.’” [Emphasis in original]

The records show the Secret Service, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), demands that 12 percent of its workforce be composed of “persons with disabilities,” and that it is the policy of the Secret Service to provide equal employment opportunity without regard to such non-merit factors as “disability (physical or mental).” 

Judicial Watch obtained the records in a FOIA lawsuit against DHS for records relating to an incident in April at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland in which a Secret Service agent assigned to protect Vice President Kamala Harris got into a scuffle with colleagues (Judicial Watch v. Department of Homeland Security (No. 1:24-cv-01705)).

According to an April 24 report by the Washington Examiner, a Secret Service agent was removed from her duties after physically attacking the commanding agent in charge and other agents who tried to subdue her.

Former President Trump took the stage in Butler, Pennsylvania, several minutes after the Secret Service first began tracking the former president’s attempted assassin, and Trump’s team was none too happy about it.

Those in Trump’s orbit said the former president’s security detail became enraged after learning they were not told for 30 minutes about a suspicious subject carrying a range finder around the perimeter of Trump’s July 13 rally, according to The Washington Post. That suspicious subject turned out to be Thomas Matthew Crooks, the former president’s 20-year-old attempted assassin.

Trump took the stage in Butler shortly after 6 p.m., according to reports. Meanwhile, local officers had first spotted Crooks between 5:45 p.m. and 5:55 p.m., the Post’s timeline of events indicates. Once spotted, local law enforcement verbally communicated the threat to Secret Service agents, but the threat was reportedly never shared with Trump’s team. Trump’s team was also reportedly never told that local law enforcement counter-snipers lost track of Crooks at one point.

The day before the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, a tactical team of local police officers set aside radios for their Secret Service partners so the two agencies could communicate during the former president’s July 13 campaign rally.

But those radios were never picked up….

Standing over the gunman’s dead body minutes later, a local police officer who responded to the initial warning expressed frustration that his own radio calls about a man on the roof seemed to go unheeded by the other officers.

“That’s what I was f**king calling out bro, f**king ‘On top of the roof,’” the officer said, according to body camera footage. “We’re not – we on the same frequency?”…

Details about the forgotten radios were included in a recent report from Rep. Clay Higgins, a Louisiana Republican member of the congressional task force investigating the events of that day. Higgins claims that a county emergency services commander had “personally reminded” Secret Service counter-sniper teams to pick up their assigned radios at a command post located at the Butler County Fairgrounds. “It didn’t happen,” according to Higgins’ report.

However, it’s clear from congressional hearings — and the details that have emerged from FBI briefings with lawmakers — that investigators still have no satisfying answers for why Crooks targeted Trump.

The glacial pace of new information coming to light has been frustrating for Crooks’ neighbors, who are still waiting for answers after the shocking discovery that they were living next to a killer who plotted to murder a leading candidate for president.

“I would love to know what really happened and what Thomas’ motivation was,” neighbor Kelly Little, 39, told The Post.

“Domestic terrorism is very real. We deserve to know what happened, but I don’t know if we’re ever going to get a straight answer.”

The FBI seized a laptop, two cellphones and multiple hard drives and flash drives from Crooks’ house.via Chuck Grassley’s Office

Little said their calm suburban street has grown quiet again after being thrust into the center of a media and police firestorm last month.

“It’s been weeks since police were here. There’s nothing happening, no police activity,” she said, noting that although local cops drive by occasionally, there are no officers stationed there long-term.

Crooks’ parents have been keeping to themselves since the shooting, which neighbors said was pretty much par for the course even before the events at the Trump rally in Butler.